physics

Pan Jianwei

Pan Jianwei is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Pan Jianwei rather than just read about it. In short: Pan Jianwei (Chinese: 潘建伟; pinyin: Pān Jiànwěi; born 11 March 1970) is a Chinese academic administrator and quantum physicist. He is a university administrator and professor of physics at the University of Science and Technology of China.

Key takeaways

Pan Jianwei belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Pan Jianwei to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Pan Jianwei from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Pan Jianwei (Chinese: 潘建伟; pinyin: Pān Jiànwěi; born 11 March 1970) is a Chinese academic administrator and quantum physicist. He is a university administrator and professor of physics at the University of Science and Technology of China. Pan is known for his work in the field of quantum entanglement, quantum information and quantum computers. In 2017, he was named one of Nature's 10, which labelled him "Father of Quantum". He is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the World Academy of Sciences and Executive Vice President of the University of Science and Technology of China. He also serves as one of the Vice Chairman of Jiusan Society.

Early life and education Pan was born in Dongyang, Jinhua, Zhejiang province in 1970. In 1987, he entered the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), from which he received his bachelor's and master's degrees. He received his PhD from the University of Vienna in Austria, where he studied and worked in the group led by Nobel prize winning physicist Anton Zeilinger.

Contributions Pan's team demonstrated five-photon entanglement in 2004. Under his leadership, the world's first quantum satellite launched successfully in August 2016 as part of the Quantum Experiments at Space Scale, a Chinese research project. In June 2017, Pan's team used their quantum satellite to demonstrate entanglement with satellite-to-ground total summed lengths between 1600km and 2400km and entanglement distribution over 1200km between receiver stations. In 2021, Physics World reported that Pan had led two teams which built two quantum computers, one of which used superconducting circuits and the other of which used photons. The device using superconducting circuits, named "Zuchongzhi 2.1", was claimed to be one million times faster than its nearest competitor, Google's Sycamore.

Awards and recognition Pan was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011 at the age of 41, making him one of the youngest CAS academicians. He was then elected to the World Academy of Sciences in 2012 and won the International Quantum Communication Award in the same year. In April 2014, he was appointed Vice President of the University of Science and Technology of China. His team's work on double quantum-teleportation was selected as the Physics World "Top Breakthrough of the Year" in 2015. His team, whose members include Peng Chengzhi, Chen Yu'ao, Lu Chao-Yang, and Chen Zengbing, won the State Natural Science Award (First Class) in 2015. In 2017, the journal Nature named Pan, along with such figures as Ann Olivarius and Scott Pruitt, one of the top 10 people who made "a significant impact in science either for good or for bad", with the label "Father of Quantum" given to Pan. The same year he won the Future Science Prize. Pan was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2018. The same year, he became a laureate of the Asian Scientist 100 by the Asian Scientist. In 2019, Pan was appointed as lead editor of Physical Review Research. He also received The Optical Society's R. W. Wood Prize. In 2020, Pan received the ZEISS Research Award. In 2026, the IEEE Photonics Society awarded Pan (together with Lu Chao-Yang) their Quantum Electronics Award of "For pioneering work on single photon sources and optical quantum computing" At an award ceremony in Paris in July 2026, Pan received from UNESCO the UNESCO-Russia Mendeleev International Prize in the Basic Sciences, with the following citation: "Professor Jian-Wei Pan is a world-leading expert in quantum optics, quantum communications and quantum computation at the University of Science and Technology of China. He is recognized for his seminal contributions to large-scale secure quantum communications and scalable quantum computation. His team developed the Micius satellite, enabling quantum key distribution and quantum teleportation over thousands of kilometres, and has demonstrated quantum computational advantage, bringing the prospect of a global quantum network from theory to reality."

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pan Jianwei

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pan Jianwei claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Pan Jianwei before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Pan Jianwei ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Pan Jianwei

In research: Pan Jianwei appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Pan Jianwei in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Pan Jianwei is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1970 births, 21st-century Chinese physicists, Academic staff of the University of Science and Technology of China, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pan Jianwei outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Pan Jianwei in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pan Jianwei means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Pan Jianwei out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pan Jianwei in simple terms?

Why does Pan Jianwei matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Pan Jianwei?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Pan Jianwei.